1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus, an image forming system, and an image forming method therefor and, more particularly, to an image forming apparatus, an image forming system, and an image forming method therefor, which select one of a plurality of printers connected to a network in correspondence with, e.g., the attributes of print data.
2. Related Background Art
Conventionally, when a host computer and a plurality of printers are connected via a network, a user of the host computer can arbitrarily select a printer for executing a print operation. More specifically, when the user wants to obtain a color print output, he or she can select a color printer; when the user wants to print out data in a desired recording paper size, he or she can select a printer having recording paper sheets of the desired size.
However, the above-mentioned prior art suffers the following problems. More specifically, the user must select a printer in correspondence with the attributes (e.g., color/monochrome, recording paper size) of print data by operating the host computer by him or herself. In particular, since many kinds of printers are commercially available and can be utilized at present, the load on the user is heavy in selecting a proper printer.
On the other hand, a conventional system for, when a plurality of printers are connected to a network, searching for, from a host computer, a printer which can print image information supplied from the host computer is known. However, with this method, the load on the host computer is heavy, and when a new printer is connected to the network, the new printer cannot often be effectively utilized.